


Something Real

by Dyce



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 20:10:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2824649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dyce/pseuds/Dyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta has been hijacked and Katniss finally gets to talk to him. That Conversation, but if Katniss was even slightly better at Saying Something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Real

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I know it's not going to happen this way, but I couldn't just leave it hanging after Mockingjay 1. I need some closure, however illusory. It seems to have come out a weird mish-mash of movie and book continuity, for which I apologize.

Slowly, reluctantly, I walk into Peeta's room. He is restrained, of course. I hate it. 

He looks at me as if I am a stranger he doesn't care for much, and I flinch. "So you're the reason for all of this. You're smaller than you look on screen. Not as pretty without the makeup, either." 

The words hurt unbearably, because Peeta would never have said something like that to me. "You aren't exactly looking your best, either." 

He laughs at that. "Wow. That's a hell of a thing to say to me, after what I've been through." 

I flinch. He's right. "I'm sorry." 

He shakes his head, smiling a cold smile that is nothing like the Peeta I know. "Not very convincing. You're a bad actress, aren't you? They showed me some of the things that happened in our first Games, you know. I must have really been out of it with that fever to have believed you." 

I don't know what to say, and I almost flee the room. It's too soon for him, for me, for both of us. But 'too soon' gives me a response even as I think it. "You never even spoke to me until we were Reaped. How fast did you expect me to fall into your arms after you announced you were in love with me? It was less than twelve hours before the Games started!" 

He blinks. I don't think he expected that. I wonder if he even remembers how quickly it all happened. "So what... you admit you were pretending? I thought you'd at least try to keep it up. Work on me with our great love story or something."

I fold my arms over my chest, knowing it looks defensive but needing something. "Of course I was pretending at first. We'd spent maybe a week together, a week when I thought you were trying to figure out how to *kill* me, then you told the whole world that you had a crush on me less than twelve hours before the Games started. I wasn't sure if I wanted to believe you or throw you out of a window." 

He looks startled again, and I experience a tiny flicker of hope. I am not following Snow's script, that's clear. I'm not doing what Peeta was told to expect - perhaps because I'm not doing what I was told to (playing on his love for me) or what I usually do when he tries to get me to talk about feelings, which is bolting like a startled rabbit. 

Snow would know that that's what I'd do. What I'd want to do, at least. And I do want to do it. But by pure luck I've hit on a strategy that Snow didn't prepare Peeta for and I have to stick with it. Humiliating emotional honesty it is. 

Peeta is frowning. As I watch, he rubs his fingers together slowly. "You did... something. My hands hurt."  
 "I shoved you over." I grit my teeth and make myself talk. Oh, I hate this so much. "I didn't mean for you to hit that vase, though. That was what cut your hands." 

"Oh, that's nice. I make you look good for the sponsors and you knock me down?" 

I snort. "You don't remember much about me if that comes as a surprise." He gives me that disdainful look again and I dredge up a smile from somewhere. "I handle feelings about as well as Haymitch does. I don't know what you remember about me, but if you remember much about him you remember that given a choice between talking about his deepest feelings and chewing his own arm off, Haymitch would ask for a napkin." 

Just for a second, I see a flicker of the Peeta I know in a small, crooked smile. "Haymitch never uses a napkin," he says, and he even sounds more like himself. The moment passes, but it's surely a hopeful sign. 

"Yeah, well, my point stands." I risk smiling a little. "Of course it was an act at first. I barely knew you, and we were in the Arena." I shiver, and I force myself to let it show. "Everything is... different, in the Arena. You can't trust anything, not even yourself." 

"Is that why you left me behind?" he asks, as if it's nothing. "Why you abandoned me?" 

"I tried to kill myself," I tell him flatly, and again he blinks as if he's not prepared for that. "Everyone acts like shooting at the dome was some big act of fucking rebellion. It wasn't. I never cared about the rebellion. I didn't even know more than a few rumours about the rebellion. I thought that if I shot the dome with the wire the explosions would kill me and the other three Victors there with me. That would leave you with only one person to kill. You wouldn't have to worry about me any more." 

He shakes his head slowly. "Why would you do that? That doesn't make any sense." 

"Why did you join up with the Careers to protect me?" I don't know how much he remembers, or how accurate it is, so I stick with what *I* know. "Why did you pull that bandage off your leg before I took out the berries, in our first Games?"

His face twists in loathing - no, self-loathing. He's ashamed of it. "Because I was an idiot," he says grimly. "Because I really thought you loved me. Because I was willing to die for a heartless bitch who used me to keep herself alive." 

The words don't hurt as much this time. "It wasn't all an act," I tell him, trying to pretend that this is a private conversation. "It started out that way. But it was more complicated at the end, when I pulled out those damned berries.." I sigh, and go to sit on the edge of his bed, beside his bound foot. He looks so startled, and I touch his leg gently. "Kick me if it'll make you feel better. I don't mind." 

His leg shifts a few times, and then he actually does kick me. I grunt, but I don't move away. Again, that's not what he expected. "You expect me to believe that?" 

I look at him, eyes meeting squarely. "Peeta, I am a lousy liar and all of Panem knows it. You said yourself I'm a terrible actress. You should have seen the first time they tried to stage one of Plutarch's propos. I swear he nearly cried, I was so awful." I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around them. "And for the record, I hate this. I hate every second of this. I am *hungering* for a bite of my own arm. But I'm not going to lie to you or try to manipulate you. I hate it when people do it to me. I'm not going to do it to you. So. The berries." I rest my chin on my knee. "Everyone has their own ideas about why I did that, you know? That it was about rebelling, or proving I was better than the Capitol, or that it was proof of how epic our love story was... it seems to mean something different to everyone. Want to know what I was really thinking?" 

He nods slowly. "Surprise me." 

"I was thinking that I couldn't leave the Arena without you. If you died and I lived, I'd spend the rest of my life in that Arena trying to think my way out. To come up with some way to make it not have happened. That's what I was thinking when I pulled out the berries. That if I killed you, or if I let you die, I couldn't live with it. I just couldn't. So the berries were win/win, for me. Either they saved us both, or we got a quick, painless end." I meet his eyes again. "I didn't know then how I felt about you," I continue. "I'm not good at feelings. I knew I couldn't live without you, but... not exactly why. I know that sounds stupid. I usually do about this stuff." 

I am so far off script that he's starting to twitch. I don't know if that's a good sign or not. "Not a bad strategy," he says after a minute. "I didn't think you were this subtle. Did Haymitch suggest it? Come in and be all 'oh, I'm just totally inept, that's why our romance looked so unconvincing', so I'd start doubting my own eyes?"

"Oh, no. They told me to come in and try to reassure you that I love you and everything Snow told you was a terrible, terrible lie." I think I can hear something outside. I take the chair beside his bed and go to wedge it under the door-handle. That should slow them down. "But it wasn't. Snow's too smart for that. Mix truth in with the lies, use your own doubts against you, and the whole thing's much more convincing." Looking around, I find a wedge that might hold the door open under other circumstances, and jam it under the edge of the door. That will help too.

He's watching me. "Barricading yourself in with me? Is that supposed to make me trust you?"

I don't know where the words are coming from. I never do. But Haymitch is right - I can never force the moments of eloquence that come to me sometimes. They come when I feel something so strongly that it breaks down my awkwardness and reserve, and now nothing matters more to me than Peeta. Than reaching him. "No. It's supposed to stop them from coming in and stopping me." His restraints are sturdy, but not locked. I start undoing them. When I look at his face, he's staring at me in true bewilderment. "What are you doing?"

"What I need to." When he's released he doesn't move for a long moment. Then he sits up, staring at me. "Okay," I tell him, and I'm truly scared but I know that this is what I have to do. Peeta, the old Peeta, would be furious with me, but I know him. If I release him, if I make myself vulnerable to him, he might believe me. "What do you want to know? I'll tell you. If you think I'm lying, go ahead and strangle me. They won't get to you in time to stop you this time." 

His hands twitch, then settle slowly. "Did you ever love me? Don't lie." 

"I won't." Even in the grip of my eloquent emotions, I have to think about what to say. "I never wanted to," I tell him honestly. "I never wanted to love anyone. Loving means getting hurt. My mother loved my father, and she was so shattered when he died that she almost let all three of us starve to death. If it hadn't been for you giving me bread, giving me hope, we all would have died. I didn't want to love you. If I'd had a choice, I would have made myself love Gale." 

His fingers twitch again, and he looks at me with a loathing that burns like acid. "Well. At least you're being honest." 

"I would have chosen Gale because I can live without him," I tell him, and I hope Gale never sees this. It would be too cruel. But Peeta needs this, and for all that they and I have talked about making a choice between them, I never had a choice. "It wouldn't destroy me to lose Gale. But you..." I shake my head. "And it didn't matter. I fought it so hard, tried so hard to protect myself, and none of it mattered. The Quarter Quell took care of that." 

I meet his eyes again, holding them. Praying that the Peeta I love is in there somewhere, hearing me. "I begged Haymitch to let me die," I tell him, meaning it so much that my voice shakes. "I *begged* him. I wanted you to live. Nothing mattered to me but that. I needed you to live. And then they rescued me instead of you because I was the damned Mockingjay and I would be more *useful*. I nearly ripped Haymitch's face off. They didn't let me near him for weeks after that." 

I move closer to him - not within arm's reach, but one deliberate step forward. "I didn't want to love you," I tell him again, letting my voice soften. "I knew that if I did, I would be like my mother. That I couldn't hold anything back, that if I lost you I would die inside. But they took you away from me and it turned out that refusing to admit it to myself didn't help. I still fell apart, just like my mother. I couldn't think. I didn't eat. Nothing mattered, not without you." 

He snorts. "I saw the propos, Katniss. You seemed just fine to me." 

"Yes. That was the deal," I tell him honestly. "It was Prim's idea. She said that they needed me, that I was important. That important people get what they want, and all I wanted was you. So I went to Coin and said I'd be the Mockingjay, do whatever they wanted me to do, if they'd save you. You and Johanna and Annie." I smile wryly. "There's footage of Coin making the announcement - I wanted a public announcement and a record, so she couldn't take it back. You can watch it. She was so angry - she basically said that I'd made these unreasonable demands and she'd had to abide by them but if I put a toe out of line she'd take it all back." 

Peeta looks down at his hands. "Snow said they wouldn't hurt you if I cooperated," he said slowly, frowning as if the memory is painful. "I didn't believe him... I think. But I still believed in you then." 

"I don't know what you remember. If you remember that I was a selfish bitch who blew hot and cold and didn't seem to know what the hell she wanted, that's pretty accurate." I say it flatly. I don't want to excuse my own behaviour. "But for whatever it's worth, yes, I loved you. I still do. And I - " 

He moves so fast. For someone so wasted it's uncanny. Hands are wrapped around my throat again, I'm pinned against the wall and I can't breathe.

I don't try. I don't fight him. I meet his eyes one last time and lift a hand to cup his cheek the way he used to do for me. I wanted to die for him. I would have gladly let Snow rip the life from my body an inch at a time if it would have saved him. If he wants my life, he can have it. 

My vision has greyed out, I'm losing consciousness, when the grip on my throat slowly slackens. "Why?" he whispers, and his eyes are haunted. "Why aren't you fighting me? Fighting to live? You always fight..." 

I gasp for breath, and it's a moment before I can answer him. "Because I can't live without you," I tell him, my voice cracking miserably. "Because I couldn't save you and they tortured you because of me and I wish I was dead. I wish I'd died in the Arena. I wish I'd just eaten the berries before you could stop me. Then none of this would have happened." 

He is still holding my neck, but the grip is a gentle one now. His eyes are distant and I can feel him shaking. I know Peeta, even know. He is struggling now, teetering on some edge, and I don't know if it's madness or the hallucinations Snow made him live over and over or a final break in his conditioning. "Tell me something," he whispers. "Tell me something real. Something that no-one else knows." 

It's hard to think after nearly being strangled, but I try. "I had a nightmare on the train, after District Eleven. On our Victory Tour. You heard me screaming and came in. When I said it was a nightmare, you said you got them too." I hold his eyes, terrified that if I break our gaze I will lose him forever. "I asked you to stay with me," I whisper. "And you said..." 

"Always." But he closes his eyes for a moment as if in pain. "No. They knew that. Something else." 

I rack my mind for something, anything, that couldn't possibly have been overheard. Have we ever been truly alone together? Unmonitored, unwitnessed? How can I know, when Snow seemed to know everything, even our very thoughts? He is shaking harder now. I'm losing him. 

Then I think of something that nobody could possibly have seen, could possibly know, because one place I am absolutely certain there are no cameras is inside my mouth. "The first time you put your tongue in my mouth, I bit you by accident." 

His eyes, which were half-closed, suddenly open. "What?" he asks blankly. 

My face feels hot, and I hope the redness from the near strangulation makes it a little less obvious. "I bit you. Well, I didn't bite you exactly, but I got the side of your tongue with my canines. It was an accident." 

He is staring at me, and though he's shaking like Haymitch off the drink his eyes seem to really see me for the first time. "That was - " 

"On the beach. The night before the end of the Quarter Quell. I know nobody could have seen that. Even if Snow somehow managed to bug our teeth, it would have been too dark to see anything in there." 

His hand slowly comes up to his mouth. "Did we stop?" he asks, as if testing his own memory. 

I blush harder. "No. Uh. I tried to, but you just laughed and kept kissing me. We got... kind of carried away." 

"I... I remember that," he whispers. "Not... not all of it, but I remember you nipping me and... it didn't matter, all that mattered was you, that you loved me... that was real?" 

I nod as well as I can with his hands on my neck - though he's almost cradling it now, his face very close to mine. "It didn't matter any more, then," I say softly. "I knew I was going to die. I would have stabbed myself with an arrow if I had to, if it came to just the two of us. So I didn't have to try not to love you any more. It wouldn't have time to hurt." My eyes fill with tears. "I mean, I thought it wouldn't. That was the plan. Haymitch promised me..." 

"I told you," Peeta says, and he sounds like himself for the first time."I told you that if you died, I would have nothing. Nothing to live for. No one who needed me." 

"I do. I need you." I have to blink away tears to meet his eyes again. "I know it's selfish. Love is selfish, I guess. We both wanted to be the one to die because being the one to live would hurt so much. But I'd rather die here and now than live with you hating me, so if you're going to do it could you get on with it before someone breaks the door down?" 

He jerks away from me, shaking, and suddenly he starts to cry, horrible racking sobs. "I tried," he gasps, curling around himself. "I tried to die. But they caught me the first time, and I never got another chance. They made me watch them torture Darius. They made me watch you lie to me, use me... I don't know what's real. I don't know what's real!" Then he lifts his head, looking at me with desperate pleading. "But I know I loved you. They made me see a monster when I looked at you, but I know I loved you once. They couldn't make me forget that." 

I go to him on legs that wobble dangerously under me. "Peeta, look at me," I say in a steady voice that comes from heaven knows where. Inside my head I'm as hysterical as he is. "You don't have to trust your memory. Not any of it. Just look at me." He does, slowly, and he's shaking again. I take his hands in mine, and as our eyes hold each other I lift them to my neck. "I would rather die," I tell him, deliberate and clear. "I would rather die than live without you. You know how hard I've always fought to survive. I'm pretty sure Snow leaned hard on that, didn't he? On how nothing matters more to me than surviving. But here I am."  
He tries to pull his hands away, but this time I do fight him, holding them tightly. "Peeta, here and now. This is real. Whether you believe me or not, I'm here with my life in your hands because *you matter more*." 

When they do succeed in breaking the door down, Peeta is sobbing in my arms. 

I am in disgrace, of course. I'm in a cell, too, except when they need me to perform for them. But Haymitch comes to me and tells me that Peeta has turned a corner. They don't know if Snow arranged it that way, that he'd come back to himself if he killed me. That he'd know what he'd done once I was dead. But having his chance, having my life to take, seems to have broken through in a way that nothing else did. He begs to see me, Haymitch says, but Coin won't let him. 

By the time the bruises on my throat have healed, he is stable enough to wander Thirteen with only a single guard. He finds his way to my cell soon enough, and we talk through the locked door. 

By the time Two falls, we are allowed to be in the same room again. It's not perfect. Peeta has flashbacks that have him cowering or raging. I have nightmares almost every night. But he never doubts me again. 

When he kisses me at last, I bite him on purpose this time. He laughs until he cries, and then I find myself in tears because I came so close to losing him. When he holds me and comforts me, I beg him to stay with me.

He tells me 'always'.


End file.
